The Book of Mormon as a Communica3ve Act: Transla3on in Context

Transcription

1 The Book of Mormon as a Communica3ve Act: Transla3on in Context

2 Transla3on An Introduc3on to the Problem

3 Each individual word of Scripture, the ques7onable reasoning suggests, was specifically selected by God and delivered to us from above in a manner very similar to dicta7on. The words were sent down, one at a 7me, like crystal droplets. Each word is an autonomous integer, separate from the rest, and each is to be treasured like a sacred gem and cherished inviolate for all 7me.

4 When it comes to transla7on preference and prac7ce, the implica7ons of this way of thinking are predictable. Those who view Scripture this way (and not all evangelicals do, of course) favor adempts at word- for- word transla7on. Transla7ons produced in this fashion are naively thought to retain all the precious original words, except that they are just in a different code now. The inclina7on is to assume that in every language there is a template of more or less exact equivalents to the inspired Hebrew and Greek words with which we started out. This is, of course, not the case at all. If evangelicals are to get beyond their current impasse over transla7on theory, they will need a more profound doctrine of biblical inerrancy one that con7nues to respect the inspired words of the original text but also acknowledges that these words are mere instruments in the service of a higher purpose, namely, the communica7on of meaning.

5 I have an old edi7on of the New Testament in the La7n, Hebrew, German and Greek languages. I have been reading the German, and find it to be the most correct transla7on, and to correspond nearest to the revela7ons which God has given me for the last fourteen years. Joseph Smith, King FolleD Discourse (Published Version)

6 All of the Presidents of the Church, beginning with the Prophet Joseph Smith, have supported the King James Version by encouraging its con7nued use in the Church. In light of all the above, it is the English language Bible used by The Church of Jesus Christ of LaDer- day Saints.

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8 The manuscripts and text show that Joseph Smith apparently received the transla7on word for word and leder for leder, in what is known as 7ght control.

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10 The GiY and Power of God

11 The Book of Mormon is a record of the forefathers of our western tribes of Indians; having been found through the ministra7on of an holy angel, and translated into our own language by the giy and power of God. I would inform you that I translated, by the giy and power of God, and caused to be wriden, one hundred and sixteen pages, the which I took from the Book of Lehi, And he, by a giy from God, has translated it into our language. it was not intended to tell the world all the par7culars of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon; and it was not expedient for him to relate these things

12 And it came to pass in the days of Mosiah, there was a large stone brought unto him with engravings on it; and he did interpret the engravings by the giy and power of God. Omni 1:20

13 It is s7ll appropriate to call Joseph Smith the translator of the Book of Mormon, but he wasn t a translator in the usual sense of the term. He was a translator in the sense of being the human involved in transferring or re- transmicng a concrete form of expression (mostly English words) received from the Lord.

14 Your first inquiry was, whether it was proper to say, that Joseph Smith Jr., was the author? If I rightly understand the meaning of the word author, it is, the first beginner, or mover of any thing, or a writer. Now Joseph Smith Jr., certainly was the writer of the work, called the book of Mormon, which was wriden in ancient Egyp7an characters, - which was a dead record to us un7l translated. And he, by a giy from God, has translated it into our language. Certainly he was the writer of it, and could be no less than the author.

15 Authen7city

16 Using chiasmus to strengthen the claim of the authen7city of the Book of Mormon as an ancient historical record is based on the assump7on that Joseph Smith was unaware of chiasmus. The historical record has yielded no direct evidence that Joseph Smith actually knew about chiasmus when he translated the Book of Mormon in 1829, although some other people at that 7me did.

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18 1) Mary leaves home. 2) She walks past the oak tree. 3) She walks past the post box. 4) She arrives at the grocery store. 5) She opens the door and enters. 6) She nods to the cashier. 7) She gets a bodle of milk from the cooler. 6 ) She pays the cashier for the milk. 5 ) She exits through the door. 4 ) She walks away from the grocery store. 3 ) She walks past the post box. 2 ) She walks past the oak tree. 1 ) Mary arrives home. hdp://

19 3 Types of Control

20 Speakers

21 Speakers: Principal Author - Animator

22 In canonical talk, one of the two par7cipants moves his lips up and down to the accompaniment of his own facial (and some7mes bodily) ges7cula7ons, and words can be heard issuing from the locus of his mouth. His is the sounding box in use, albeit in some actual cases he can share this physical func7on with a loudspeaker system or a telephone. In short, he is the talking machine, a body engaged in acous7c ac7vity, or, if you will, an individual actor in the role of uderance produc7on. He is func7oning as an "animator." Animator and recipient are part of the same level and mode of analysis, two terms cut from the same cloth, not social roles in the full sense so much as func7onal nodes in a communica7on system.

23 But, of course, when one uses the term "speaker," one very oyen beclouds the issue, having addi7onal things in mind, this being one reason why "animator" cannot comfortably be termed a social role, merely an analy7cal one. Some7mes one has in mind that there is an "author" of the words that are heard, that is, someone who has selected the sen7ments that are being expressed and the words in which they are encoded. Some7mes one has in mind that a "principal" (in the legalis7c sense) is involved, that is, someone whose posi7on is established by the words that are spoken, someone whose beliefs have been told, someone who is commided to what the words say.

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25 There is something fairly obvious about transla7on being a double act of communica7on. Being at the receiving end, I want to read the new novel by Mo Yan, but I am unable to read Chinese. Therefore, somebody must have read the novel before me, and this must have been a person who can understand Chinese. It must also be a person who can write my language. This person, then, is at the receiving end of one process of communica7on, but at the start of another process. What makes this model more useful for understanding transla7on than earlier models, however, is the ideas about communica7on as such which I have presented above that the receiver is an ac7ve subject, who must concre7se the artefact produced by the receiver into a percept; The translator is a doubly ac7ve subject, as interpreter and as creator of a new text. He or she is the receiver of one act of communica7on and the sender of another one. He or she first has to transform the artefact into an object of his/her own experience. This is a process that cannot be described as encoding, with any inten7onal depth of the word, because this term suggests a simple exchange of one coded item for another. The correspondence oyen has to be at a much higher level of understanding.

26 Loose Control The Gold Plates First Communica7ve Act Principal: original writers (Nephi, Jacob, Mormon, Moroni, etc). Author: original writers (except when quo7ng source documents verba7m) Animator: original writers

27 Loose Control The Gold Plates Transla7on First Communica7ve Act Ideas in Joseph s Mind Second Communica7ve Act Principal: original writers Author:?? Animator:??

28 Loose Control The Gold Plates Transla7on First Communica7ve Act Ideas in Joseph s Mind Transla7on Principal: original writers Author: Joseph Smith Animator: Joseph Smith Second Communica7ve Act English Book of Mormon Third Communica7ve Act

29 Tight Control The Gold Plates First Communica7ve Act Principal: original writers (Nephi, Jacob, Mormon, Moroni, etc). Author: original writers (except when quo7ng source documents verba7m) Animator: original writers

30 Tight Control The Gold Plates Transla7on First Communica7ve Act Words viewed by Joseph Smith Second Communica7ve Act Principal: original writers Author:?? Animator:??

31 The Audience

32 A translated text, whether prose or poetry, fic7on or nonfic7on is judged acceptable by most publishers, reviewers, and readers when it reads fluently, when the absence of any linguis7c or stylis7c peculiari7es makes it seem transparent, giving the appearance that it reflects the foreign writer's personality or inten7on or the essen7al meaning of the foreign text - the appearance, in other words, that the transla7on is not in fact a transla7on, but the "original." The illusion of transparency is an effect of fluent discourse, of the translator's effort to insure easy readability by adhering to current usage, maintaining con7nuous syntax, fixing a precise meaning. What is so remarkable here is that this illusory effect conceals the humerous condi7ons under which the transla7on is made, star7ng with the translator's crucial interven7on in the foreign text. The more fluent the transla7on, the more invisible the translator, and, presumably, the more visible the writer or meaning of the foreign text.

33 many of the transla7on ac7vi7es which led to new developments and changes in Chinese culture were ini7ated or undertaken by non- Chinese people. For their work to be effec7ve, they had to have sufficient knowledge of China s contemporary needs to be able to properly place both themselves and their work within this host culture.

34 The translator ought always to figure to himself, in what manner the original author would have expressed himself, if he had wriden in the language of the transla7on

35 Rabassa s transla7on is a triumph of fluent, gravid momentum, all stylishness and commonsensical virtuosity. His first four books published in English did not speak with the stunning lyrical precision of this one (the invisible translator is Michael Henry Heim). Helen Lane s transla7on of the 7tle of this book is faithful to Mario Vargas Llosa s Elogio de la Madrastra but not quite idioma7c. The Samurai, a transparent roman à clef, fluently translated by Barbara Bray, chronicles Ms. Kristeva s and Paris s intellectual glory days. In Stuart Hood s transla7on, which flows crisply despite its occasionally disconcer7ng Bri7sh accent, Mr. Cela7 s keen sense of language is rendered with precision. OYen wooden, occasionally careless or inaccurate, it shows all the signs of hurried work and inadequate revision. [ ] The Spanish original here is 10 words shorter and incomparably more elegant. An adempt has been made to use modern English which is lively without being slangy. Above all, an effort has been made to avoid the kind of unthinking transla7onese which has so oyen in the past imparted to translated Russian literature a dis7nc7ve, somehow doughy, style of its own with lidle rela7on to anything present in the original Russian. He is solemnly reveren7al and, to give the thing an authen7c classical smack, has couched it in the luke- warm translatese of one of his own more unurgent renderings. Paralysing woodenness ( I am concerned to determine ), the dull thud of translatese ( Here is the place to men7on Pirandello finally ) are oyen the price we more or less willingly pay for access to great thoughts.

36 wriden in English that is current ( modern ) instead of archaic, that is widely used instead of specialized ( jargonisa7on ), and that is standard instead of colloquial ( slangy ). Foreign words ( pidgin ) are avoided, as are Bri7shisms in American transla7ons and Americanisms in Bri7sh transla7ons. Fluency also depends on syntax that is not so faithful to the foreign text as to be not quite idioma7c, that unfolds con7nuously and easily (not doughy ) to insure seman7c precision with some rhythmic defini7on, a sense of closure (not a dull thud ). A fluent transla7on is immediately recognizable and intelligible, familiarised, domes7cated, not disconcer7ng[ly] foreign, capable of giving the reader unobstructed access to great thoughts, to what is present in the original.

37 The linguis7c fingerprint of the Book of Mormon, in hundreds of different ways, is Early Modern English. Smith himself out of a presumed idiosyncra7c, quasi- biblical style would not have translated and could not have translated the text into the form of the earliest text. Had his own language oyen found its way into the wording of the earliest text, its form would be very different from what we encounter. A large amount of textual evidence and the foregoing discussion contains only a sliver of it tells us that Joseph Smith did receive and read a revealed Early Modern English text. Understandably, he may not have been fully aware of it

38 As has been demonstrated so many 7mes, transla7ons which deviate from sanc7oned paderns which many of them certainly do are oyen tolerated by a culture to a much higher extent than equally deviant original composi7ons.

39 Reading Through the Lens of Transla3on Some Concluding Thoughts

40 When God speaks to the people, he does it in a manner to suit their circumstances and capaci7es. Should the Lord Almighty send an angel to rewrite the Bible, it would in many places be very different from what it now is. And I will even venture to say that if the Book of Mormon were now to be rewriden, in many instances it would materially differ from the present transla7on.